fire and air
by alexmis
Summary: Nathaniel wants to see Bartimaeus' true form - but what could he possibly expect? Bartimaeus delights and frights over this. / light bartnat and headcanon on bart's shape, feelings and a little mush


"What do you really look like?" he asked.

"What?"

"Under the guise. You know what I mean. You have a true form, don't you?"

"Yes. We do. Have true forms."

"I know you _do_. But what's yours?"

"Why the sudden interest?" Bartimaeus was caught off-guard.

"I was just thinking, is all. About essence and the Other Place. Wondering. I remember when we were..." he trailed off. They knew what he meant. "I felt your essence, but the shape was there and it wasn't. You didn't need a true form on any plane, but it's like your essence still _remembered_ the shape. It's hard to explain."

Nathaniel shifted so that he was pressed more comfortably against the man beside him. Except he wasn't a man, but the shape was there and they liked it that way.

"Mmmm. It is. The essence _wants_ to form a cohesive shape on Earth, but in the Other Place we don't really have one. So our true forms are the closest to what our essence wants to be naturally. Some lesser spirits confine themselves much more easily. Imps, natters. You've seen them. Their true form's the only shape they can really take because they aren't skilled enough to shape their essence. But for us higher beings, our essences are too vast and grand to be tightly bound to a single form..."

"But...?"

"But...it is there, in a sense. I do have what you would call a natural shape on the higher planes. Trying to tie it all up all the time aches."

"You're still avoiding the question."

"Am I?"

" _Bartimaeus_."

"Alright, alright. Well, for starters it's _very_ grand. Absolutely sumptuous. Beauty you'd be unable to recognize with your mortal eyes, surely. There'd be no point in letting you see. You wouldn't be able to worship it properly. In fact, you might keel over dead from shock at the sheer grandiosity."

"Come on, Bart. You've seen _me_ naked."

"I've seen a lot of humans naked. You don't look much different without your clothes, besides the increasing amount of dangli-ness and flesh - of which I'm _far_ too familiar. This is _completely_ different. You can't understand." The man's golden eyes continued to stare at the ceiling, trance like.

"That won't keep me from being curious. Why are you so shy about this? Usually you're ready to do back-flips if it means getting praise." He paused, thinking about how to sugar his words. He laid it on thick. "The praise you deserve, of course. I bet you are grand. A second would be worth millions to me." He tried to smirk in a coy way, but managed to grimace like a stubborn child. The politician in him sprang out. "But if you don't want the worship to fall upon your worthy shoulders..."

"Oh good, I don't actually. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

Nathaniel sat up and looked at Bartimaeus with furrowed brows; a strange expression. "It's very unlike you to be so secretive like that. About yourself, I mean. Are you embarrassed by something?" Bartimaeus was about to speak, but was stopped. "Seriously. Don't tiptoe around it anymore. What's wrong with me seeing your true form? Don't you trust me?"

That was a difficult question to ask and a difficult one to hear. Despite their years together, the relationship they had built, they were well aware of it's foundations and the way the world was built.

Still, it was easy enough to answer. "I do trust you. But this is...different. It's not just about trust. Usually true forms are reserved for giving magicians heart attacks, or for warning other spirits to get lost. I don't want to do either of those with you."

"Oh, I understand," he said, "You think it'll scare me? I won't be frightened of you, Bartimaeus. I _know_ you." He smiled genuinely. "I want you to trust me with this. But I won't pressure you to if it makes you uncomfortable. I do want to see you, though."

The Sumerian man sat up beside Nathaniel. His demeanor purposefully changed, and he said, "You _do_ want to see me, don't you?"

Nathaniel nodded. His own curiosity had pestered him for a while. In recent times it had leapt to the forefront of his imagination, and with incessant thought had encouraged him to finally ask. He didn't expect Bartimaeus to be possibly bashful over the notion. Surely, it wasn't that huge of a deal. But in a way, Nathaniel thought, it must be odd for a spirit to feel so exposed to a human for reasons unusual. Perhaps this was Bartimaeus' quiet intimacy, like all the times he'd join Nathaniel in the shower without paying much attention to how taboo it was for the human.

"I _suppose_ you are worthy enough." He uncoiled himself from the bed where they were tangled and walked to the center of the room with practiced steps. "Promise me your head won't pop off from awe, will you?"

"You have my word." He turned to face him and felt something rise in his chest that he wasn't expecting. Pride? Excitement? Adoration? Fear? For such a simple question, this felt like a proper moment.

Slowly, the Sumerian man melted away and arcs of colour faded along with him. Layers of essence were slowly peeled back, looping in on themselves like solar flares, and were remolded and gathered into a slowly building shape - the figure grew, blurred at first, but ever shifting until the mass had doubled in size. The edges were fuzzy and essence continued to morph and shift, but eventually the change stopped.

At least, Nathaniel guessed that it had stopped. It was difficult to focus his eyes on any one shape. It was like hearing someone speak but being unable to understand the words: the shape was there, and he was seeing it, but it was so foreign to his eyes he had to read it slowly.

He tilted his head and instead of trying to look at Bartimaeus piece by piece, refocused his attention to his form as a whole. It was humanoid - no, wait, he'd been standing, but now he was lowering himself. He was lumbering. He had paws. Feet? There were hands. There were wings, massive wings, that melted away from the source of the body - a torso of sorts - they were feathered and scaled. Perhaps they were delicately dusted like a moth's downy wings.

The limbs were all attached to this trunk - it breathed, but not like a creature of the Earth. It shifted and moved like an animal and seemed to be made of sinew, but the picture frame was tilted and so it was hard to see it's exact shape; it was related to the Earth but not the Earth. The legs; arms, with hands or feet or perhaps both were six in number and each seemed to face a different way. They were strong and heavy but almost fluid, and they twiddled and played. Nathaniel realized Bartimaeus must be a bit restless, waiting for a response, seeing his intense study. There was perhaps a tail curling madly around an ankle - elbow - wrist, but perhaps it was a boneless limb - endless bones? Did he have bones?

He wasn't done figuring yet. He still hadn't found an explanation for the colours. When they had been one, Nathaniel had caught glimpses of the Other Place. This was Bartimaeus' colour. He thought perhaps there was tawny, gold, rich and warm. But then there were deep blues and oily blacks and dark, dark reds. There was velvet in the lighting of his body, but sometimes it seemed raw and open. The texture was as hard to place as the colour.

Nathaniel followed the torso and left the seeking limbs and wings behind to find the neck. There must be bones, he thought, because the spine was obvious and harsh and the neck was atop a broad chest.

When Nathaniel found the eyes, he stopped and felt himself lost. The shape of his face as a whole was unexpected and alarming, but being able to look into his eyes and knowing that he was _seen_ got caught in his lungs.

There were many eyes - to count them seemed pointless because some were closed and then where there were several there were none; there must be others he couldn't know about. But there were many, and they were all an even colour of sulfur. Were there pupils? It was hard to tell, but if there were they weren't black.

The face was long, and there was a snout with a wrinkled nose. There were four nostrils, and they sniffed the air like a rabbit's. Where ears were to be expected it was flat, and the jaw was heavy with many sharp teeth; rows and rows of teeth, and though he did not open his mouth, Nathaniel knew it to be vast and dark.

"Well?" said Bartimaeus. His face did not move, and the sound seemed to resonate deep within his chest. "Get on with it, then."

Nathaniel said nothing and his face had not changed, though he didn't try to relax his tense shoulders or calm his breath. He admitted to himself he hadn't been expecting something like this. Then again, he hadn't been sure what to expect at all.

Instead of answering he stood from the bed and walked towards Bartimaeus. The movement was automatic and stiff. He felt Bartimaeus ripple like shimmering air as he shuffled back an inch.

Nathaniel lifted his hand and reached upwards - while sitting, Bartimaeus was several feet over him - and kept looking into the many yellow eyes, each looking back at him. His hand hit something. It was hard. It was pliant. It was moving; alive, but it wasn't. He'd been right about his guess before - Bartimaeus' snout felt like velvet, and it was very, very cold. It was cold like water that's so hot your hand can't tell it's burning you.

Nathaniel's breath left him with a crash and he laughed without making sound. "That's really you?" he said, "That's really you?"

"As close as I can get. You already know the real me."

Nathaniel laughed breathlessly again and felt his eyes prick. He took Bartimaeus' bony head in his small palms and looked and looked and looked. He felt how vast he was around him. He felt the shifting, heard the hum.

"You're not afraid? Grossed out? Not having a heart attack?" asked Bartimaeus. "No pitchforks for you?"

"That's really you," he said again, and something in him snapped, and he wanted to be closer. He stepped forward and let Bartimaeus wash over him. It was cold, and hot, and Bartimaeus was heavy and light. He felt the ethereal limbs wrap around him gingerly, and he breathed in deep. Feathers; scales, sinew, bone, shuffled. There was no heartbeat, there were no lungs, but he thought he heard the rush of something like blood.

A being of fire and air.

"You're really there," Nathaniel said.

"I'm really here," said Bartimaeus.

And they fell together.


End file.
